On Gitmo, Libya and Even Gas, Obama Says One Thing and Does Another

There was yet another of those grand pronouncements from President Obama on Monday -- exercises in Orwellian doublespeak: The White House declared that while Mr. Obama was still committed to completing “the difficult challenge of closing Guantanamo” Bay detention camp, he was instructing his Pentagon to resume trying detainees before military commissions there.

Come again?

Republicans loved it, calling the president’s new executive order an indication that Mr. Obama had finally “seen the light” on the need for military tribunals, and on how hard it would be to shutter the detention facility, as he vowed to do on his first day in office. Rep. Peter King, of New York, the Republican chairman of the House committee on homeland security, praised the decision as yet another “step in the right direction.”

But liberals and political independents, whose support for the president has steadily eroded based on Mr. Obama’s earlier policy waffles, denounced the move as hypocritical and cynical – yet another example of presidential leadership by default. It was also, they asserted a prime example of Mr. Obama’s penchant for saying one thing and doing the opposite. Calling the move “troubling,” the ACLU said it indicated that the president had chosen to “institutionalize unlawful indefinite detention,” creating a “new normal” when it comes to combating terrorism.

While we agree with the president that military commissions are, as the White House put it, an "important tool in combating international terrorists," this is the third time in less than a week that President Obama’s rhetoric and actions have been strikingly at odds.

The most dramatic example in foreign policy is the president’s stance on Libya. Calling Muammar Qaddafi’s killing of his own people “outrageous” and asserting that the deranged dictator had lost all “legitimacy” and should step down, Mr. Obama has nevertheless shied away from imposing a “no fly” zone over Libya to ground Col. Qaddafi’s air force or providing other overt military aid to the rebels.

In this bloody stalemate, psychology is playing an important role in determining the outcome of the struggle. Mr. Obama’s inherent caution – normally a useful instinct – is likely to play strongly to Qaddafi’s advantage.

No one is recommending an invasion of Libya with American or NATO forces, but Mr. Obama seems unwilling to take any concrete steps beyond sanctions and denunciations to provide the rebels with the help they so desperately need. Qaddafi is consolidating his forces. America looks weak and diffident.

On the domestic front, too, there are telling examples of the president’s calculated passivity. The president has lamented rising gasoline prices triggered by the uprisings in the Middle East, but has not indicated that he may begin tapping into the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves, a move that would signal to America’s friends and foes alike that Washington is prepared to counter soaring oil price that could threaten the nation’s and indeed, much of the world’s financial recovery.

Vagueness and caution, however, undoubtedly have political virtues for President Obama. The president’s decision to pusue military trials for Gitmo detainees, for example, enables him to look tough and show resolve against accused terrorists. Abd al- Rahim al-Nashiri-- the presumed instigator of the attack on the USS Cole – is likely to be the first detainee, or among the first, to be tried by a military tribunal at Guantanamo now that the ban has been lifted. Such a trial could reassure restive swing voters who have been increasingly skeptical of Mr. Obama’s tentative approach to the waves of protest that have swept the Middle East.

A well timed trial of a high profile defendant at Gitmo would be the strongest possible rebuttal to a Republican-orchestrated drumbeat that the administration is soft on terrorism.

Plus, President Obama may be able at least temporarily to assuage his left flank by asserting that such detainees will eventually be tried before federal civilian courts, knowing full well that no such trials are likely to be held that could jeopardize his political fortunes before November 2012, if ever. -- The Congress ensured that by passing a ban on moving detainees to the U.S. for detention or trial, which undercut Mr. Obama’s plan to try some of those being held there in civilian courts on American soil.

Make no mistake about it: Obama's decisions on Gitmo are a boon to his critics on the right who favor indefinite detentions and military tribunals there. For despite asserting that he remains firmly committed to civilian trials on American soil, the net result will be what many on the right have argued is the only practical solution to combating policy--indefinite detentions and military tribunals at the place Mr. Obama so dramatically vowed to close.

Judith Miller is Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who specializes in national security and the Middle East. A writer and author, she is also a Manhattan Institute scholar. Douglas Schoen is one of the nation's most prominent political pollsters and political consultants, who has done polling for former President Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. His latest book is "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System" published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins. Both are Fox News contributors.